Paving the Way: The National Park-to-Park Highway

This pleasant documentary about the national park to park highway is just shy of being a parody of pbs documentaries. It could easily be mistaken for an Onion parody on the net.

For instance, I was saddened to learn, cued by the solemn music, that Anton Westgard did not live to ride upon the route that he had laid out for the Park Service.

This was such a stupefyingly boring documentary that I often felt that I was being played for a fool, but no, it was all meant to be as it was. This was not a riff by Bob and Ray from forty years ago on the radio; this was a for real documentary, which I must say is very, very hard to believe. Brandon Wade is to be commended for the ability to secure funding for this unique film.

Twice when I was working as a stockbroker, I was awarded free dinners by my branch manager, because I alone, among fifty stockbrokers who were all also licensed for life and health insurance sales, stayed awake throughout the entire required continuing education seminar about variable annuity step ups and tax free 1031 exchanges. The film was much more colorful than the handout given to me by the insurance compliance instructor.

If this film was re-edited only slightly, making portions of it even slower, and lingering a bit longer upon the black and white photos of proper gentlemen of a century ago, who look very White and Protestant and upset with anyone who is not, it could become a midnight movie for many a college campus for decades.